Once on a really hot May afternoon in one of South Delhi’s swish malls, at a recently opened international food joint, a big, fat, loud Punjabi family sat beside us, ordering possibly the most expensive dishes on the menu. Their howling toddler was being tended to by a young, shy maid who was possibly from the North East.
As they stuffed their faces and screamed obnoxiously, the mother busy chattering with her highly dolled up friends before fishing out their latest iPhones to click selfies, pouting, the bawling child was being soothed by the nanny, no more than 11 or 12. No food was given to her, except some remnants of finger fries from a soiled plate, with utter inhuman disdain. The man of the house kept rubbing her back in a strangely incestuous manner, his eyes lust-ridden.
Another time, when my father was dining at a top 5-star restaurant in Mumbai with his business associates he too witnessed a ritchie rich family hand out bones from their tangdi kebabs to a minor, a maid looking after an elderly lady in a wheelchair, wiping her constant saliva, straightening her face and feeding her. The family treated the primary care-giver no better than a street pariah.
Growing up in Kolkata, I still remember a neighbour who was famed for seducing his part-time maids, the reason my grand-mother claimed they could never find a full-timer. The wife, barren, allegedly slept separately as her spouse had sex with a woman who scrubbed their dirty utensils. Some were also forced to get abortions, paid to keep shut, lest local political goons who love getting embroiled in family squabbles got involved. These goons on the pretext of taking up the lower class struggle, probably extracted some easy cash, and bedded the same woman on the slimy pretext of being her mai-baap.
We made a helluva lot of noise when on December 11, 2013 Devyani Khobragade, then the Deputy Consul General of the Consulate General of India in New York, was charged by US authorities for visa fraud and providing false statements to get Sangeeta Richard, a woman of Indian nationality, for employment as a domestic worker and nanny into US. We heard the term ‘diplomatic immunity,’ then too, while the headlines now scream how the two Nepalese women, rescued from the Gurgaon flat of a Saudi diplomat were sexually assaulted by over 20 men. Medical tests – performed twice – indicated the extreme brutality, with the victims claiming that sometimes seven or eight men would take turns raping them.
Sometimes friends who migrated overseas joke what they miss most about living in India is being pampered by servants, nannies, cooks, drivers, ayahs for the aged. On a serious note our maids and nannies represent a voiceless, right-less, marginalised segment who can’t educate their boys – countless, nameless Chottus, serving in tea stalls, wiping cars and employed as cheap labour in factories and shops. Daughters sold to prostitution by their fathers. Wives, beaten, battered by abusive, alcoholic husbands – illiterate without any professional skill training/vocational education by the powers that be. They are mass of bodies, breasts, buttocks, arms, legs – a bunch of have-nots who matter only during elections, hungry stomachs in a morally bankrupt society, that we use, pity, pay, but seldom treat as equals.
In 2006 Lokhandwala housewife Roma Bhatia, was arrested with the suspected rape and murder of a 10-year-old maid. Roma confessed that she was incensed when the she discovered the maid using her mother’s make-up kit. When she denied it Roma forced an aluminum rod into her private parts, tying her hands and legs. On September 8, 2015 cases of non-bailable charges were registered against Opposition All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) MLA, Gopinath Das accused of sexually harassing his domestic help, also a minor.
In 2014, Wall Street Journal reported that maids in West Bengal were subjected to the highest number of cases of violence, with 549 maids and helpers filing complaints against their employers. Tamil Nadu ranked second with 528 cases in 2012, Andhra Pradesh was third with 506 cases. There is no set minimum wage for domestic workers here. In Delhi, a domestic help can earn between Rs 3000 ($48) to 24,000 ($320) per month.
In January, 2015 a couple from Vasai were arrested on charges of sexually abusing and physically torturing their 30-year-old maid, since 2000, following which she lodged a police complaint. The house-owner Leon Lamba (37) would allegedly force her to consume liquor before raping her. His wife Rita branded her with mosquito coils over house errands, leaving severe burn marks all over her body.
Maid in India or India Shining – which story would you prefer?
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